What is called the “Universal Enforcement of the National Minimum” contemplates the extension of laws already on the statute books in order to prevent the extreme degradation of the standard of life brought about by the old economic system under industrialism.  A living minimum wage is to be established.  The British Labour Party intends “to secure to every member of the community, in good times and bad alike . . . all the requisites of healthy life and worthy citizenship.”

After the war there is to be no cheap labour market, nor are the millions of workers and soldiers to fall into the clutches of charity; but it shall be a national obligation to provide each of these with work according to his capacity.  In order to maintain the demand for labour at a uniform level, the government is to provide public works.  The population is to be rehoused in suitable dwellings, both in rural districts and town slums; new and more adequate schools and training colleges are to be inaugurated; land is to be reclaimed and afforested, and gradually brought under common ownership; railways and canals are to be reorganized and nationalized, mines and electric power systems.  One of the significant proposals under this head is that which demands the retention of the centralization of the purchase of raw materials brought about by the war.

In order to accomplish these objects there must be a “Revolution in National Finance.”  The present method of raising funds is denounced; and it is pointed out that only one quarter of the colossal expenditure made necessary by the war has been raised by taxation, and that the three quarters borrowed at onerous rates is sure to be a burden on the nation’s future.  The capital needed, when peace comes, to ensure a happy and contented democracy must be procured without encroaching on the minimum standard of life, and without hampering production.  Indirect taxation must therefore be concentrated on those luxuries of which it is desirable that the consumption be discouraged.  The steadily rising unearned increment of urban and mineral land ought, by appropriate direct taxation, to be brought into the public exchequer; “the definite teachings of economic science are no longer to be disregarded.”  Hence incomes are to be taxed above the necessary cost of family maintenance, private fortunes during life and at death; while a special capital levy must be made to pay off a substantial portion of the national debt.

“The Democratic Control of Industry” contemplates the progressive elimination of the private capitalist and the setting free of all who work by hand and brain for the welfare of all.